Who Should You not take Relationship Advice from?

All relationships have their road bumps and rough patches and its during this time we try to find answers and connections to those around us. So who do you turn to?

Friends and Family

You may turn to close family and friends who have been experience your relationship through its duration. This problem is that friends and family are not part of every conversation, every intimate moment, and every moment together. They’re bias in their love for you and could also be bias on their own feelings on your significant other. Some might instantly suggest a break up because they never liked him and they’re been waiting for this chance.

Message Boards (Reddit, Quora, etc)

Some might want to keep their issues private from friends and family and find message boards to be an unbiased third party. Let me tell you, the internet has a lot of emotions and opinions, they are always bias. They may have had their own personal history with the issue you’re facing now. Things might not have worked out for them since they are two different people and their relationship is different from yours. They’ll give you advice based on their experience and outcome but that doesn’t mean it’s the right advice for you. Strangers are also quick to judge and are not at all emotionally invested in your or your relationship. They do not have your best interest in mind, only their own opinions.

The rest of the internet (blogs)

Half of my blog is focused on relationship advice so it seems like a contradiction to tell you not to listen to myself and fellow bloggers, but yeah totally don’t listen to us. We’ve had our own experiences and have formed defense mechanisms against heartbreak, but our words may not be your truth. We tell our stories in the hopes that you may relate and find community here but it is still your life and your decision to make.

So who do you listen to?

Feel free to listen to the stories and advice to those around you and on the web, you’ll resonate with some and fight against other ideologies. This is your gut telling you your truth. Try your best to be self aware and realize if you are self sabotaging or if your intimacy issues or past heartbreaks are standing in your way. Issues in a relationships are often a chance for growth if you’re ready for it.

5 Comments

This is great and no one ever talks about this! It’s nearly impossible to go to friends and family. My family has always been pretty quiet on their thoughts until I eventually broke up with my long time boyfriend and they were all like “Oh thank goodness. I never really liked him!” It would have been nice to hear that and I maybe wouldn’t have wasted 6 years of my life haha but let’s be honest, it was definitely not a waste. I learned something from it. A friend of mine always asks my opinion on her relationships and I can’t understand why. She goes on and on but when I give her my advice or thoughts, she almost never listens to them so I think she just likes to vent haha it’s hard to listen to your gut because it either feels like you’re just running scared, or they valid feelings.

I often hear how people trust so much in other people’s opinions, that they listen to them unconditionally. It always boggled my mind. Personally, I never sough out advice from others exactly because of what you wrote – various bias.

I understand that some people can be in mentally challenging relationships, and they might not have proper judgement skills. Then, they probably should listen to others a bit. You know, to help open their eyes.

However, in the end, I feel like every relationship is different, and you cannot compare them to each other. There might be red flags, but just because those red flags led to a disaster in someone else’s relationship, doesn’t mean that your red flags cannot be turned into green ones with some work.

In my opinion, some people just want it simplified. They don’t want to get hurt, they don’t want to “figure it out”, so they hope for an easy solution. No matter what happens, they can blame it all on that other person who suggested x,y and z to them.

Hi… thanks for liking my blog.I appreciate your comments about the pitfalls of looking on the Internet and social media for advice. I am lucky in that I can talk with my brother about dating. Siblings are sometimes a good soruce, if you get along with them. They know you pretty well. I have been seeing a counselor for some time and we talk a lot about dating. She is very good at offering an outside perspective and sees through my self-deception. I talking about talk-counseling, not necessarily psychotherapy. If you religious, reading sacred texts is a good way to get wisdom on the life issues that affect dating. It’s a deep subject, but worth the effort to look into yourself. Good luck out there, daters!